Over the weekend, two more titles published by Thistle Books reached the Amazon top
100 bestseller list: Earth: An Alien Enterprise by Timothy Good, and War Beneath
the Sea by Peter Padfield (which reached the top 40).

08 Nov 2016: Chloe Banks back in Amazon bestseller list

Chloe Banks’ debut novel, The Art of Letting Go, has once again returned to the Amazon
bestseller list, reaching number 39 over the weekend.

01 Nov 2016: Another great review for Patrick Garrett

Patrick Garrett’s fascinating biography of journalist Clare Hollingworth, Of Fortunes
and War, has received another rave review, this time from the Literary Review:

‘The list of her assignments reads like a potted history of warfare, espionage and
terrorism…she emerges in Garrett’s book as a rounded personality…The story of her
life is a kaleidoscope of world events, shot through with determination and courage.
It’s a great read.’

18 Oct 2016: Great review for Of Fortunes and War in The Oldie

There’s yet another terrific review for Patrick Garrett’s fascinating biography of
journalist Clare Hollingworth in the current edition of The Oldie.

“All the excitement of a fast moving thriller.”

11 Oct 2016: Time Magazine covers launch of Of Fortunes and War

Patrick Garrett’s fascinating biography of journalist Clare Hollingworth continues
to generate huge media interest, with a long piece in the current issue of Time Magazine.

There’s a terrific review for Patrick Garrett’s fascinating biography of journalist
Clare Hollingworth in The Correspondent.

“The story of how Clare Hollingworth achieved her great scoop, the outbreak of World
War Two, during her first week as a journalist is well known, but it is always worth
telling again, especially when it is done with such verve and skill as it is by Patrick
Garrett.”

Two titles by the ever-popular royal historian Theo Aronson are currently selling
well. The King in Love, the story of Edward VII’s mistresses, is currently at #12
in the Kindle bestseller list. And A Family of Kings, about the descendants of Christian
IX of Denmark is also in the top 100, at #64.

22 Sep 2016: New Kindle Single from Nicholas Best

Nicholas Best’s powerful historical novella The Hangman’s Story has just been launched
in the Kindle Single store - it’s currently the first book on the homepage.

There’s an interesting interview with author Patrick Garrett on his new biography
of war reporter Clare Hollingworth in the Deutsche Welle this week.

“We are in the midst of an age of upheaval, marked by international crises. Does
Hollingworth continue to observe these developments, despite her advanced age, and
if so, how does she view them in light of her experiences?

Clare is a few weeks away from her 105th birthday, and she is now quite frail. Long
ago she researched many of the themes that are only now achieving major prominence.
[Republican presidential candidate] Donald Trump is suggesting that the US should
abandon its NATO allies: This was an angle that Clare followed up in the 1960s. Clare
was in Israel when the state was founded and all over the Middle East during World
War II.

Religion-focused terrorism was a subject she wrote about and in fact was attacked
for by academics. Some of her remarks have proved sadly prescient. She wrote about
how effective the foot soldier could be against a superpower using the simplest tactics:
We see that, too, in the Middle East. Based in China, she wrote about potential tensions
in the South China Sea and Pacific long before they were daily news fodder.

As for watching today - she still likes to feel that she is part of the news world
and insists on keeping her passport by her bedside and her shoes beside her bed in
case she is called out to cover a story. Obviously that isn’t going to happen anymore,
but it was what gave her a sense of purpose, and is perhaps one reason for her longevity.”

Patrick Garrett has written a fascinating new piece for Quartz magazine, based on
his new book Of Fortunes and War: Clare Hollingworth, first of the female war correspondents,
published last month.

‘From the 1930s onward, veteran war correspondent Clare Hollingworth made a century-long
journey from rural Leicestershire, through wars and revolutions in Europe, North
Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, to Hong Kong in the final days of the British
empire. A recently released biography of her life, by her nephew Patrick Garrett,
chronicles her “uncanny Zelig-like ability to appear on the front lines of world
events.”’

David McClure has written a very interesting piece for the International Business
Times on the royal family’s mysterious finances.

‘They do things differently on Planet Windsor. That’s the term given by Prince Charles’s
most recent biographer to the rarefied world inhabited by the royal family. What
Catherine Mayer had in mind were the peculiarities and rivalries of court life, but
in my experience researching a book on the wealth of the Windsors it also applies
to how the royal family is immune to the normal rules of public scrutiny.’

Todd Crowell has written a fascinating new article on the tense situation between
China and Japan.

“China and Japan are redefining the nature and purpose of the Coast Guard. Americans
still think in terms of air-sea rescue or chasing drug smugglers when they think
about their Coast Guard. China and Japan think about their Coast Guards in terms
of realpolitik. The two nominally civilian services are on the front lines of territorial
disputes in the South and East China Seas. Both countries are adding to their coast
guard fleets at a breakneck pace. One could almost call it a Coast Guard arms race,
except that the vessels are lightly armed if armed at all.”

Sian Rees’s The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth Century
Ship and its Cargo of Female Convicts has been optioned by Pretty Monster with support
from Australian Screen.

17 May 2016: Vikie Shanks on BBC Radio

Vikie Shanks, author of the inspirational memoir Unravelled, did the newspaper review
on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire on Saturday. You can hear it here (starts at 38.00).

16 May 2016: Croatian island memoir optioned for drama

Anthony Stancomb’s memoirs of moving to the Croatian island of Vis Under a Croatian
Sun: From Grey Britain to a Sunny Isle: One Couple’s Dream Comes True and Notes from
a Very Small Island have been optioned by Life and Soul Pictures.

16 May 2016: Irreplaceable serialised in the Sunday Mirror

Louise Moir’s powerful new memoir Irreplaceable was serialised this weekend in the
Sunday Mirror.

We’re sad to announce that the great Irish novelist Michael Curtin recently passed
away. Michael’s many fans included Roddy Doyle, who described him as “one of Ireland’s
best writers”. There was a nice tribute in the Limerick Leader.

David McGrath recently gave a reading at a meeting of Waverton Good Reads, after
which all copies of his exhilarating debut novel Rickshaw were quickly snapped up.

‘David McGrath writes for ‘my mates in the pub who never read’, but the rapid sale
of copies of Rickshaw after his performance of a scene from this novel to a room
of avid readers tells you that his appeal is much broader than that. No, he doesn’t
like adverbs and he avoids flowery descriptive language. Instead, he uses sparse
narrative and superb dialogue to say it all.’ Gwen Goodhew - Waverton Good Read Award

Joe Holliday’s powerful memoir She’s a Boy was one of the Kindle 50 ‘most-read’ titles
during October.

16 Nov 2015: Joe Holliday on Independent 'Rainbow List'

Joe Holliday, author of bestselling memoir She’s a Boy, has been included on the
Independent’s ‘Rainbow List’ - “our annual celebration of the 101 most influential
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in Britain”.